HPCA’s staff celebrated Mandela Day at Woodside Special Care Centre on the 18 July 2016.
What is Mandela Day?
Nelson Mandela International Day was launched in recognition of Nelson Mandela’s birthday on 18 July, 2009 via a unanimous decision of the UN General Assembly.
It was inspired by a call Nelson Mandela made a year earlier, for the next generation to take on the burden of leadership in addressing the world’s social injustices when he said that “it is in your hands now”.
It is more than a celebration of Madiba’s life and legacy. It is a global movement to honour his life’s work and to act to change the world for the better.
Woodside Special Care Centre
Woodside Special Care Centre is a residential home caring for 90 profoundly intellectually and physically disabled residents and is situated in Rondebosch East, Cape Town, South Africa. Since its inception in 1976, Woodside has worked diligently towards building a home of safety and security for its residents, all of whom require specialized care and who are unable to remain within their family units.
Woodside also fosters children who are wards of the court – these are children who have been neglected or abandoned by their families.
The key services that they provide at Woodside are:
· 24 hour professional nursing care
· Physiotherapy
· Occupational therapy
· Speech and language therapy
· Respite care (daily or hourly relief care to families with multi-disabled children)
Their main aim is to provide holistic care and stimulation to profoundly multi-disabled residents and offer hope and help to discouraged families. They also aim to equip the Centre with the necessary materials and equipment which will enable their staff to operate at a high level of professionalism in all spheres of the services they offer to their residents.
Woodside is a place of encouragement, inspiration and constant training for its dedicated staff. With continuous training the staff will be able to provide up-to-date care and stimulation to the residents that they serve.
The service levels at Woodside are of a very high standard and comprise professional administration under the guidance of a general manager, a professional nursing sister and qualified staff nurses, a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist and a fundraising and public relations department.
HPCA’s involvement
Petra Burger (HPCA’s Disability Coordinator) made us all aware of Woodside and the fantastic work that they do. A team was then assembled and hard work began in preparing for Mandela Day to make sure it would be a memorable one. The first hurdle to get over was to appeal for donations and to provide the items on a “wish list” that was sent from Woodside to HPCA of the dire needs that they currently have.
This list was then sent out to all the staff and in no time donations started flowing in with a massive donation of 11 258 coming from a company called Prosperity. With this money we were able to get over 70 tracksuit pants, 80 facecloths, DVD players, soap and toiletries. It was a massive boost and helped tremendously in ticking off all the boxes on the wish list.
Once we managed to secure these items, planning then went into the day and how we would spend our 67 minutes. It was then agreed that the staff members would be spilt up into 4 group activities, namely art therapy, painting the pause area, packing the laundry and lastly helping out in the kitchen.
Paedspal along with the Western Cape Department of Health partnered with us for this initiative and also got involved. Paedspal headed up by Dr Michelle Meiring conducted aromatherapy sessions for each of the carers at Woodside, involving hand and foot massages.
While this was happening, the Western Cape Department of Health offered their services in providing relief carers. All in all it was a truly fantastic morning, where as a whole we felt truly grateful and humbled by the experience and by giving back to this amazing organisation.
We would like to thank the following people and organisations for their time, effort and valuable contribution to making the day such a success!
· Prosperity
· Yusree Israel & Taahira Allie
· Billy Boo
· Butcher shop & Grill
· Centurion Tours
· Hugh Nourse (Passion Food)
· Merrypak
· SARS Legal Department
· Paedspal
